


The Danger'Verse

by elrhiarhodan



Category: White Collar
Genre: M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2011-02-25
Updated: 2011-10-28
Packaged: 2017-10-15 22:49:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 57
Words: 17,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/165657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elrhiarhodan/pseuds/elrhiarhodan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Our heroes are in jeopardy.  It could be Mentor and OPR, or maybe it is a completely different threat.  The Danger'verse is a continuing series of ficlets told in 300 word chapters based on prompts from the WhiteCollar100 community on LiveJournal.</p><p> </p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Target Has Been Acquired

“The target’s been acquired.”

“Then fire when you have a clear head shot.”

The target and his partner were sitting in an outdoor café near Federal Plaza. It looked as if they were waiting for a third person. The crowded sidewalks, filled with tourists and office workers, made this execution difficult. The sniper was stuck in an empty fourth floor office, the muzzle of his rifle resting on a hole cut out of the window pane, waiting for the perfect moment to pull the trigger.

When it came, it came between one heartbeat then the next. The target stood up to greet a woman and as he bent down to kiss her lips, the perfect shot was there. He just had to squeeze gently on the trigger and the bullet would penetrate the skulls of both the woman and the target. His finger relaxed.

“You had perfect shot, damnit. What happened.” The voice on the other end of the radio was furious.

“That would have been a two-fer. You’re paying me for one body and no collateral.” The sniper didn’t tell his employer he didn’t kill women. At least not American women who weren’t wearing IEDs strapped to their bodies.

The radio crackled again. “If there isn’t a body on the ground in the next hour, you may want to think about finding a new line of work that doesn’t need index fingers.”

The sniper ignored the threat. The man on the other end had no clue what he looked like. When the trigger was pulled, he would just leave. He had no attachment to his weapon, and when he walked out of the building, he’d be just another anonymous office drone, a New Yorker completely blasé about the police and the sirens and the dead body on the ground.


	2. The Hunter Becomes the Hunted

That afternoon, no man is ever so thankful to have allergies as Peter Burke. Sitting with Neal and El, he should have been enjoying lunch al fresco, but the tree pollen is playing havoc with his nasal membranes and every few minutes, he rubs at his eyes, clears the back of his throat and sneezes. He looks at Caffrey, perfectly coiffed, perfectly dressed and hates him. His eyes never get bloodshot from rubbing, his nose doesn’t turn bright red from constant blowing and he certainly doesn’t need to make disgusting sounds trying to clear an itch deep inside his ears.

When he thinks about it afterward, he also realizes that Neal Caffrey probably never started to sneeze and saved his own life.

Between one moment and the next, Peter lifts his head back to let out a sneeze, Neal shouts “you’ve been targeted,” pushes him to the ground and he's surrounded by the sound of shattering glass and screams.

His first thought is Elizabeth, and his heart stops when he doesn’t see her. Then he feels her hand on his chest and then her lips on his cheek.

Peter starts to get up, but Neal shoves him back on the ground. “Stay down - the sniper may still be hunting for you.”

Peter drags El inside the restaurant with the admonition to stay put, and he goes outside to find Neal. He ignores the other man’s glare and tries to find the shooter’s perch.

Neal hold out his arm, pointing up at the fourth floor of the building across the street. “There - see the gunsight?”

Peter nods. “The shooter’s long gone.”

“Think it’s the same person that was behind Mentor?” Neal’s voice is surprisingly steady.

“Very likely.” Peter’s voice is grim. “I think it’s time for the hunter to become the hunted.”


	3. Protection

Peter is tired of protective custody. He’s bored and angry. It’s been three weeks since the attempt on his life and he’s been holed up in a well guarded, but anonymous downtown hotel room. He sees his wife just once a week, and his dog, never. He goes from one underground carpark to another, dressed in a riot helmet and body armor. Peter supposes he could be dead, that would be a lot worse than protective custody.

It didn’t take much to figure out how the sniper knew where he’d be. Someone hacked his Blackberry - an inside job, but they couldn’t trace it back. Diana’s been doing her best to shadow the case, but she only has so much authority, and Hughes has been keeping any developing information close under wraps.

Neal provided the one bright spot in this whole debacle. Given the make and model of the rifle the sniper left behind, he suggested checking the military for recently decommissioned servicemen with long-range kill experience. The list was long, but manageable. By the time they finished whittling it down, there were three possibles, and then just one - Thomas Jansen, who was found floating in the East River the day after the attempt on his life. The NYPD was treating it as a case of suicide. There were no wounds on the body and the corpse wasn’t wearing any shoes, which is typical for a jumper.

With the suspected sniper dead, Peter convinced the FBI to release him from his protective detail, with the promise that he will take all reasonable precautions. He finally understood Neal’s frustration in his search for Kate’s killer. The FBI wasn’t letting him near this case, but that didn’t mean that Peter was going to leave it alone. This was his life at stake.


	4. Redacted

“This is all there is, boss.” Diana dropped a thin file on Peter’s desk. “The life and times of Thomas Jansen, redacted courtesy of the Department of Defense.”

Peter opened the file, and his anger and frustration mounted. There was a picture, plus name and rank. The serial number and all other pertinent information was blacked out. He handed the folder to Neal.

“We’ve gotten answers with less.” Neal grimaced, not believing his own words. “But I may be able to get some more information from other sources.”

“The little guy?” Diana wouldn’t admit it, but she had a soft spot for Mozzie.

“Don’t let him hear you call him that.” Peter gave her a sour smile.

Neal ignored their exchange. “Moz has sources…”

“That you can’t tell us about.” Peter remembered the first time they made use of Havisham’s data...which lead to a warehouse, a printing press and the creative application of the Exigent Circumstances exception to the Fourth Amendment. “Okay then, sic him on this, but warn him that the people who hired Jansen to kill me will not hesitate to take him out too.”

Neal tried to keep hold of his temper. “They didn’t hesitate about killing Kate or trying to kill me, either.”

Diana looked from one man to the other. “You both think that Mentor’s behind this?”

Peter’s voice was hard as stone. “If not Mentor, then who? That hit was set up with inside information. They know I’m looking for Fowler and his masters.”

“And the closer you get, the more likely they’ll try again.” None of them noticed Hughes had walked into Peter’s office. He reached out and plucked the Jansen file off of the desk. “Stay out of this, Peter. I don’t want to have to go to your funeral."


	5. Heart of an Onion

“We need a completely background on Lieutenant Thomas Jansen, a former U.S. Army Ranger. He was rotated out of service and resigned his commission late last year and went to work for McGuinness-Humboldt. It looks like Jansen suicided the day after the attempt on Peter’s life. Peter’s been blocked from the investigation, and the DoD won’t give up any background information on the man.

“Department of Defense - you don’t ask for small favors, do you?” Moz smirked. He liked the idea of a challenge.

“Moz, you’re going to have to be very careful. Can you do this without letting anyone know that you’re the one asking?”

Mozzie grinned. “I can be like the heart of an onion.”

Neal sighed. “This isn’t a joke. Someone tried to kill Peter. He failed and ended up dead. I don’t want the anything happening to you because you’ve tried to help.”

“Neal - trust me. My actual sources are buried so deeply that Theseus would need the world’s biggest ball of thread to find his way in and out of that maze.”

Neal didn’t smile at his friend’s classical allusion. “Okay, but the minute you feel the least bit of danger, you go to ground. You don’t contact me or Peter directly until you feel it’s safe.”

Mozzie shook his head. “Those are dangerous words to say to a professional paranoid.”

“Moz - these people are serious. They killed Kate, they tried once for Peter - and they’ll probably try again.”

“Neal - I’ve spent more than half my life hiding from the powers that be. Give me some credit. If I get the slightest hint of trouble, I’m in the wind. It’s Protocol Alpha, message in a bottle.”

Neal rested a hand on Mozzie’s shoulder. “Be careful, please. You are too important to me to lose.”


	6. Ask Me No Questions

Late Wednesday afternoon, Neal and Peter met with Mozzie in the safe house formerly known as “Tuesday.” Peter smiled as he looked around the empty space. It was still as empty as the last time he had been there, but Moz had been back at least once. The “J. Edgar” graffiti had been raked over, and the rake itself was carefully positioned against one of the supporting beams. The space was immaculate, too. It had been close to a year since he and Franklin had been here, but the place didn’t feel abandoned.

Peter and Neal were sitting almost in the exact spots that he and Franklin had occupied, but without the bonsai to trim, Moz stood at the edge of the garden, poised on the balls of his feet, as if he were about to run.

“So, what did you find?” It was Neal who broke the silence.

“A lot, my friend.” Moz said nothing else, seemingly distracted by the sparrows that were nesting in the rafters.

“Well?” Peter was getting impatient, although he certainly knew from past experience not to rush the little man.

“Thomas Jansen - the former Army Ranger that drowned in the East River, didn’t exist until six months ago, when he was honorably discharged from the Army. Coincidentally, his social security number wasn’t issued until two weeks after he returned home - the week he started working for McGuiness-Humbolt.”

“You’re telling me Jansen was a ghost?”

“I’m telling you nothing, Suit. I am merely giving you the information I’ve uncovered. You’ll need to draw your own conclusions.”

“You’ve got to have more than this.” It was Neal’s turn to get impatient.

Moz gave Neal a tiny self-satisfied smile. “All I’m going to tell you is to take a really hard look at McGuinness -Humboldt.”


	7. Collateral Damage

“Dan, thanks for meeting us here.”

Here was a small playground in Riverside Park, well within Neal’s radius. Captain Dan Shattuck of the NYPD was a tall, wiry man with a well-lived face. He was also one of Peter’s oldest friends. Neal had meet the man a few times over the years, and genuinely liked him. He was not that dissimilar from Peter; smart, loyal and not so hidebound that he didn’t see the advantages of bending the rules occasionally.

His face was grim as he sat down next to Peter. “A witness came forward with information about the alleged suicide of your shooter, Thomas Jansen. She said that she saw four men throw someone off of the Willis Avenue Bridge the night after you were shot at. The woman said that they pulled a guy out of an SUV, grabbed him by the arms and legs and tossed him over the guardrail a little after 2am. She even gave us the tags and make and model of the vehicle.”

“So, what’s the problem?”

Dan scrubbed at his face. “There are two problems. The first is that the witness wasn’t particularly reliable. She’d been in and out of Bellevue about a dozen times in the last five years.”

“Wasn’t?” Neal picked up on the second problem.

Shattuck turned to him. “Yeah - wasn't. She was found dead of an overdose this morning. But not from her meds. It was heroin.”

Peter gave a shout of frustration. “Is there no one that these bastards can’t get to?”

Dan shook his head. “You need to be very careful, my friend.” He looked at Neal. “You, too.”

“Did anything turn up on the car’s plates?”

Shattuck smiled. “Yeah, the black Ford Explorer was registered to McGuinness-Humboldt.”

Neal smirked. “There’s your probable cause.”


	8. Smoke

Peter couldn’t risk Hughes finding out that he was still trying to discover who had tried to kill him and why. Reese wouldn’t hesitate for a minute to bench him or put him back under a protective detail if he thought Peter was actively chasing the people who wanted him dead. Which was why he was working from home today. The FBI didn’t have any sort of telecommute policy; agents were expected to be in the office when they weren’t out in the field, but there was a little leeway for senior agents who had bad headcolds. Allegedly.

Neal should be here any moment, with soup and the data he’s gotten on McGuinness-Humboldt from Mozzie’s sources. All roads were leading back to this company, a privately held business with global operations. Thing was, despite their elaborate website, he had no idea what McGuiness-Humbolt did.

He heard the front door rattle and reached for his gun, a precaution. But it was Neal, as expected, gracefully managing a rather large box of papers and a bag from Hale ‘n Hearty.

“Your soup, sir.”

“Chicken chile?”

“Beanless, as requested.”

“And the data?”

“Voluminous, as hoped.”

Peter retrieved bowls and spoons from the kitchen and dished out the food while Neal started pulling out the files.

Just as they were about to get started, there was a loud popping noise from the fireplace and the living room filled with smoke.

As Neal dumped the files back in the box, Peter shouted at him to grab Satchmo and get out.

He didn’t wait to see if Neal listened - he reached for the fire extinguisher hidden behind the fireplace tools and emptied it into the fireplace, but the smoke and flames kept coming.

He’d be damned if those bastards took his home from him.


	9. Fire Damage

“Peter, come on. Get out of here.”

Neal’s pulling on his arm, trying to drag him out of the house. He knows he should go, but this is his home. He hears sirens and lets Neal guide him outside. The clean autumn air hits him and he’s coughing from the acrid smoke he inhaled. Three trucks pull up and firemen pour out. He tries to shout, to tell them the fire is in the chimney, but he can’t. Neal presses him back against the car and runs over to the captain. He can’t hear them over the sound of the engines, but he sees Neal urgently gesturing and the man giving instructions over the radio.

Neal comes back and stands by him. Peter tries to talk but starts coughing. Neal waves over the EMTs and they put an oxygen mask on him. He waits for the sound of shattering glass, the destruction of his home, but it doesn’t come. In fact, it’s over in less than a half hour.

The chief comes over to talk to them. “The Arson Squad will need to do a complete investigation, but it looks like it was an incendiary device planted in the flue, set for a slow burn. If you hadn’t been home or if it was in the middle of the night, the fire would have taken the whole house.”

He lets Neal talk; it’s enough that he can hear the answers.

“How bad is the damage?”

“You got lucky. It was contained to the fireplace and the surrounding area. Mostly smoke, not a lot of burn damage.” The chief walks off to talk with the arson crew.

Neal turns to him. “You don’t think that there was only one device planted, do you?”

Peter manages to get one word out, “No.”


	10. Assumptions

It couldn’t be helped; Peter needed to be checked out at a hospital. Neal called Elizabeth, and when she didn’t answer, he left her a text. He called Moz, then Diana, relying on her to do what needs to be done at the office, and to keep trying to reach Elizabeth. But there was no way he was going to allow Peter to go to the hospital without someone to watch over him. He didn’t care that it was out of his radius and off the list of approved locations. Let the Marshals come after him; he had no qualms about using them to protect Peter.

The EMTs refused to let him ride in the ambulance. When charm didn’t work, he simply climbed into the ambulance. When the tried to eject him, Peter clamped down on his wrist and glared at the technicians.

Dealing with the hospital was worse, they wouldn’t let him into the treatment cubicle; “family only” was the rule. Fed up, he pulled the security guard over and explained in short words with single syllables that this was the second attempt on Peter’s life and he wasn’t leaving his side until his wife and the FBI arrived. He didn’t mention that the Marshals would be here soon, too.

He sat quietly with Peter, who was still breathing from the oxygen mask. His color was better but he couldn’t talk without coughing. A doctor came in to check Peter’s lungs, and when Neal started to ask questions, she wanted to know who he was.

“I’m his partner.” Easier than saying, “his CI.”

The woman’s back went stiff and her face registered utter disgust. “This is a private hospital. Neither New York State nor Kings County requires us to grant domestic partner visitation rights. You need to leave now.”


	11. The Cavalry Arrives

It took about thirty seconds for all hell to break lose.

Peter pulled the oxygen mask off and tried to speak, but started to cough before he could get any words out. The fury in his eyes would have been enough to frighten most normal humans into immediate compliance but the hacking ruined the effect. Neal began to seriously reconsider his position on physical violence when the doctor called for the security guard to have him removed.

Neal was about to shove the bitch’s assumptions down her throat, along with her caduceus pin, prescription pad and her stethoscope, when Diana arrived with Elizabeth, who ran straight to Peter. Three U.S. Marshals were right behind them, and they were trailed by nurses, more security guards, and several NYPD officers who just happened to be in the Emergency Room.

Elizabeth immediately started peppering the doctor with questions and when she looked from Neal to Elizabeth and back to Peter in complete confusion, Neal couldn’t help himself. “This is his wife. Your patient and I are with the FBI, you stupid bigot.”

The doctor took umbrage at Neal’s tone, but at least she remembered her oath to do no harm and started Peter’s medical examination.

Diana waved her badge like a magic wand and the police and hospital personnel dispersed. Her time in D.C. was obviously put to good use. She used that damn two-fingered summons to call Neal over to explain why he left his radius.

“Someone just tried to kill Peter, I wasn’t going to leave him unprotected.” Diana didn’t hesitate to voice her approval of his actions.

The Marshals were clearly unhappy, but since Neal was in the company of his handler and had the support of the FBI, there was little they could do other than file a report.


	12. Oxygen

The doctors kept Peter on the oxygen for almost another two hours. Neal and Elizabeth took turns sitting with an ever more impatient patient. The Marshals finally left, but Diana stayed until the protective detail arrived. She vetted them carefully, then departed to go brief Hughes.

Peter glared at the team of four agents assigned to watch over him. They were unfazed. He may be Big Bad Peter Burke, but they had a job to do. At least they gave him and his family a little privacy.

Peter frowned and suddenly made a motion that sort of looked like a scribble, and El handed him a notepad and pen.

“Where’s my dog?” He shoved the paper at Neal, and his eyebrows were that of a man not wanting to be made unhappy.

Neal patted Peter on the back and leaned in to keep his voice down. “I put Satch and the box in the Taurus before I went back into the house to get you out. I called Moz, he’ll take the car, the box and the dog to one of his safe houses.”

Peter grabbed the notepad back and scribbled “My car? Mozzie’s driving my car?”

“Yes, Peter. Your car, with your dog and all that data on McGuinness-Humboldt. To a safe place.”

El was quicker on the uptake than Peter, maybe it was the smoke, or the oxygen. “If these people planted something to cause a fire in our house, what would stop them from putting a bomb in your car?”

She leaned into him and all of a sudden, started to shake, the adrenaline rush that kept her going since she got Neal’s text and Diana’s phone call dissipated, and it was all she could do to stay upright. “Our home...they’ve gotten into our home.”


	13. Safe House

Peter didn’t argue against the protective detail while he was in the hospital, which was mercifully brief. After two hours on oxygen, his breathing returned to normal, although his voice was raw and he had some trouble speaking. Which made arguing with Hughes difficult. He wanted to go back to the house and oversee the arson investigation, and Hughes wanted him and Elizabeth and Neal (yes Neal) in an FBI safe house - somewhere in upstate New York, under constant watch.

Peter had endured two weeks of protective custody after the shooting, and he wasn’t going that route again, but the fact that these bastards were targeting his home, which meant that El was now in danger gave him pause. Neal, too.

“Reese, we can’t go into hiding. El has a business, Neal and I have work to do.” Peter didn’t mention that the two of them had their own investigation they were conducting. But there was something resigned about his attitude. Then Neal caught his eye and Peter nodded at him to continue.

“Sir, I may have a better solution than heading into Back-Of-Beyond, NY.”

Hughes gave Neal the stink eye and Peter wanted to laugh. He grew up near Back-Of-Beyond and knew just how appallingly boring it was.

“Does your solution involve a certain paranoid individual who may or not be a licensed attorney and who may or may not have connections with organized crime in Detroit?”

Neal didn’t reply directly. “He may be paranoid, but that doesn’t mean that people haven’t been out to get him. He’ll keep us safe.”

Peter wasn’t sure that Hughes was going to go for this, but it was almost an ideal solution. So long as they weren’t staying in a storage unit.


	14. Obscurity

The NYFD's arson unit finished up at the Burke house. They found three more of the incendiary devices, all with RF receivers on the triggers, but they couldn’t guarantee that there weren’t more. For that, and a thousand other reasons, the Burkes couldn’t go home

Neal arranged for secure transport to the safe house Moz was providing for them. He called it Obscurity and it was a surprisingly palatial retreat near Brooklyn Naval Yards. The facade of the enormous building suggested an old fashioned and now abandoned storage facility; you could just make out the words “Big Yellow Mini Storage” under the flaking paint. Like the unit that Peter had gone to when he was so briefly on the lam with Jack Franklin, there was a distinctly zen-like feel to the place.

His breathing still impaired, Peter looked for a chair to relax in and Moz - sensitive (for once) to this guest’s needs, steered him into the smallest room (which was still bigger than the whole first floor of his house). It held two comfortable couches, a few easy chairs, a television screen big enough to shame a sports bar, and his dog, who seemed to have adopted one couch as his very own. Peter sat down gratefully and tried to concentrate on the problem at hand, but his brain couldn’t seem to function properly.

“Suit - can you trust me?” Mozzie peered at him through his glasses.

Peter thought, _Yeah - you’re just about the only one I can trust._ He just nodded.

“I don’t have to tell you that you have made very powerful enemies. But you should know - as bad as they are. I can be even worse. Believe me on that, if never anything else.


	15. Disconnection

Obscurity is a surprisingly pleasant place to stay.

While Peter certainly misses his own bed and the familiar quirks of his home, this wasn’t anywhere a bad an experience as his first foray into protective custody. For starters, he had his wife, his dog and his partner within reach on a 24/7 basis. And he has a box of papers and files about the mysterious McGuinness-Humboldt. Obscurity also had a shielded WiFi signal that enabled him to get full access the FBI servers he needed. Mozzie quietly showed him the hardware closet and Peter was certain some of the tech in there shouldn’t be used by civilians. But frankly, with everything going on, Peter couldn’t bring himself to care.

At the moment, he was sifting through papers. He’d already been through McGuinness-Humboldt’s corporate filings and publicly released tax information - which wasn’t much of anything since the company was privately and very closely held. The box of files he never had gotten the chance to go through before they tried to burn down his house also contained some surprisingly sensitive information about the three principals of the company.

Scanning the papers, Peter started looking for connections - to him, to Neal, to the music box. Nothing jumped out at him. The founders were all ex-military, veterans of the first Gulf War. That was the only thing they had in common - on paper. One was a marine - an NCO, the other an air force colonel who flew a hundred sorties over Baghdad, and the third was regular army, a paper pusher in the military’s supply chain who never saw action in either Kuwait or Iraq.

There was simply nothing to connect these three men to him or to Mentor. Peter could find no reason why they wanted him dead.


	16. Explosive

“Suit, you have a serious problem.”

Peter had just finished with the files on McGuinness-Humboldt, which left him with nothing but more questions. “What’s my problem?” His voice was still raspy from the smoke.

Mozzie had a deadly serious look on his face, which disturbed Peter to no end.

He licked his lips, a nervous gesture. “I found clay in your tires - in both your car, and Mrs. Suit’s. Both had clay under the passenger seat, too.”

Peter blinked and then went nearly blind with fury. How dare they - how dare they take this to his wife.

“Who else knows about this?”

“Neal. We worked on both your cars.”

“What were the triggers?”

“Same as the six other incendiary units I pulled out of the walls of your house. The ones that the NYFD arson squad so conveniently missed.”

Peter hadn’t known about those, and he glared at Moz for keeping that information from him. “You think this reaches into the Fire Department?”

“Suit - I think this goes into every agency and bureaucracy that you’ve touched.”

“You have connections - can you use them to find out who bought the C4 you found in the cars?”

“I’ll need to run the clay through the lab - the batch should have a chemical signature that will point to a manufacturer. We’ll work it from there.”

“You have other connections too.” Peter’s voice was flat.

“That I do.” Mozzie didn’t ask what other connections Peter was talking about.

“No one goes after Elizabeth.”

“How do you want to do this?” Moz might have been asking Peter how he liked his coffee.

Peter thought for a moment. The last time his wife was threatened, he hit first and asked questions later. This wasn’t any different.

“Moz, I want you to start with their thumbs.”


	17. A Breather

Peter thought Neal was enjoying “protective custody” a bit too much. His tracker was off (probably in a box on Diana’s desk), Hughes had reached out to the Marshals’ Office and let them know that Neal was under cover for the foreseeable future. Given how often Neal had been without the tracker over the past year, the Marshals hadn’t even asked for back up paperwork.

They spent hours going over the McGuinness-Humboldt files, tracking down the smallest details, but every time they thought they had a lead, it dissolved into nothing. It would have been better had they hit a brick wall, at least they’d have something to tear down.

Peter was still fuming over the bombs in the cars, the triggers in his house – but he seethed quietly. El wasn’t doing too good in this enforced retreat from reality, and to learn that her life was in jeopardy would make it even worse.

But Neal was taking everything in stride, when he wasn’t working with Peter; he was working on a mural in the main room, Michelangelo-style. It was breathtaking – a trompe l’oeil sky and garden. Peter liked to watch Neal work, an artist at his craft. At the end of a session, he’d swing down from the scaffolding like a trapeze artist and give Peter a quick kiss before heading off to bathe.

Despite El’s agitation and his own anger at their helplessness, Peter did enjoy the nights. To be able to climb into that big bed, to have El on one side, Neal on the other, Satchmo on the floor, nearby. To hear them breathing, to have them safe in his arms; to smell his wife’s perfume pleasingly mix with the lingering traces of Neal’s paint.

If someone wasn’t trying to kill him, he’d be very happy.


	18. Fingerprints

“I have an idea.”

“What?”

Neal handed the file to Peter – it was the dossier that Mozzie had compiled on Eric Hostler, the former Army captain who became the CEO of McGuiness-Humboldt, which happened to include a set of fingerprints from his security clearance file. Peter didn’t want to know how Moz got hold of that.

“How do we know that Eric Hostler is who he says he is? How do we know that any of these guys are for real? Jansen was a ghost after all, why not Hostler?

Peter thought for a moment. “If we run these prints through the national database, it’s going to send up warning flags. But…” Peter looked at the fingerprint card; the ink was done in New York City. “I think we may have caught ourselves a break.” He handed the file back to Neal and pointed at the “origin” box on the card – the 15th Precinct.

“Your friend, Capt. Shattuck is at the 1-5.”

Peter smiled at Neal’s use of local PD terminology. “Yup. He can run these through the City’s database. This may turn up nothing, or it may be just what we need.”

“It’s probably going to be another dead end.” Neal sighed.

“Yeah, probably. But let’s be optimistic.” Peter was getting tired of Obscurity, they’d been cooped up for weeks. Elizabeth was coping, barely. She handled her business with a series of burner phones, and gave thanks that her staff was so competent. But she still needed to get out there, to meet with clients, to sign contracts – to get the ink on the signature line.

Peter wasn’t letting her out, no matter how urgently she wanted to go. It wasn’t safe, and his enemies certainly knew that the surest way to get to him, was to go after Elizabeth.


	19. Desperation

“Peter - I’ve got to get out of here.”

The desperation in Elizabeth’s voice tore at him. He reached for her and tried to hold her close, but she struggled like a wild animal. He held her fast and eventually she calmed down.

“I know, love. I know. But it’s not safe.” Peter felt El shudder in his arms.

“I never thought I’d be this way - so...claustrophobic.” He could hear from the break in her voice that she was on the verge of tears.

He sat down and pulled her into his lap. “Shhh, honey. It will be all right.” El just seemed to collapse.

“No it won’t. It never will be all right again.” Her words, so quietly spoken and the hot tears soaking through his shirt nearly broke his heart. He wished he could promise her that there was nothing to be afraid of, that they could go back to the way that everything was. But he couldn’t. Not yet - not until they tracked down the monsters who wanted him dead.

He rocked Elizabeth like a child in need of comfort. She was so strong, so much his own rock that it this breakdown shook him to the soul.

Neal walked in and paused at the sight of Elizabeth weeping in Peter’s arms. At Peter’s nod, he came to them and knelt by the chair.

“I have some news.”

Elizabeth lifted her tearstained face, a little bit of hope coloring her cheeks.

“We’ve checked through the entire house, from attic to basement. We’ve pulled apart everything and put it all back together again, and it’s safe, and if Peter agrees…” Neal looked up at the other man. “We can leave Obscurity and go home, under guard. Not to stay, not just yet - but just for a little while.”


	20. Too Much of a Coincidence

Moz ran the tests on the C4 he had discovered in Peter’s car, and hacked into the FBI’s chemical signature’s database to match it to a manufacturer. When the results came back, he ran the tests again, just to make sure, because this was just too much of a coincidence. Convinced of the accuracy, he initiated a trace on the purchase.

And came up with another dead end. Literally.

Moz didn’t want to bring this to Peter, the failure was just too demoralizing. And he didn’t want to tell Neal, because the coincidence was too painful. But there was no one else he could tell, no one that he fully trusted to reveal the location of Obscurity. Except maybe…

The Lady Suit. Diana. His beautiful monster.

Peter trusted her. Neal did too.

So he made a quick phone call, then a second one - for backup, just in case. Monsters, no matter how beautiful they may be, have a way of not being exactly what they appear to be. And Suits were notoriously untrustworthy.

They met under the TKTS stand in Times Square. He didn’t bother with code phrases or sonnets or newspapers. Diana had less patience than the Suit, and frankly he knew those little games never mattered.

“What have you got?” Diana cut right to the chase.

“The C4 was purchased by Thomas Jansen two weeks after a man bearing that identity was pulled out of the East River. ‘Jansen’ paid cash.”

Diana shook her head in frustration.

“That’s not all of it.”

“It’s not?”

“The C4 was made by the same company that sold Fowler the Semtex that was used to blow up Kate’s plane.”

“That’s just too much of a coincidence.”

Moz didn’t have anything to add to that. He felt exactly the same way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NOTE: This ficlet references a previously unrelated drabble, Beautiful Monster at my LJ - http://elrhiarhodan.livejournal.com/81031.html


	21. A Credit to his Profession

“Moz, you’re a credit to your profession.” Diana gave Mozzie a little respect, at last. As much as the little man annoyed her, he was probably the best one to keep Peter, El and Neal alive and find out who was behind the attempts on their lives.

“I may be pocket-sized, Lady Suit, but I am the best in the business.” Moz hadn’t forgotten the insult she had once thrown at him.

“Do I want to know how many laws you broke getting this information? How many databases you hacked?”

“Lady – if you have to ask, you really don’t want to know.”

She grimaced at him, and Moz was reminded of a sleekly beautiful attack dog. All elegance and grace until you made a noise and attracted its attention. Then it became doom on legs with sharp pointed teeth just a bit away from ripping your heart out. Moz absently rubbed the scar on his chest. He had already come close to having that organ removed…and since he was fond of breathing, he kept his distance from Diana. From his beautiful monster.

“Are you going to tell Neal and Peter?”

“Why wouldn’t I? They need to know what’s going on.”

“Well maybe because they just might do something stupid…like leave Obscurity to track the bastards down.”

“That may be something Neal would do…but Peter knows better.”

“Oh, really?” Contempt dripped from Moz’s voice. “You have a very selective memory.”

Diana shrugged – Moz was right. Telling them could only drive them deeper into danger.

“So what do you suggest?”

“The long con, we draw them out. We play their game and cut them off at the knees.”

She grinned in appreciation and Moz shivered. “Like I said, you are a credit to your profession. I have an idea.”

“I’m all ears.”


	22. Not Unlike a Cup of Sugar

Neal watched as Peter paced around the large central room in Obscurity. It drove him crazy … just a little. Neal had learned the art of stillness in prison. He learned how to quiet his mind and his body when he had to. Oh, he still fiddled and fidgeted – more to drive Peter crazy than anything else. Peter, however, could no longer sit still.

Not that Neal blamed him. They’d run out of leads. Capt. Shattuck had visited earlier in the week, and he suggested that it would be safer to start with a manual search request. Peter agreed.

Right now, Peter seemed to be out of patience, and Neal didn’t blame him.

The object of his observations turned and glared at him. “Why aren’t you climbing the walls?”

“I spent four years in a cell about the size of the rug you’re wearing out. I learned to cultivate patience, to harvest it slowly.”

“Nice metaphor, Longfellow.” Peter glared at him again, and resumed his pacing.

“You know, Peter…why not just pretend you’re in the van? You have lots of patience when you’re stuck in the van.”

“I know, I know. It’s just…this is personal.”

“Let me see if I can loan you some of mine. Sit down, on the rug.”

At the end of his rope and with nothing to do, Peter complied. Neal sat down behind him and captured his hands and wrists. They sat like that for a few moments.

“Close your eyes and breathe slowly.” Neal toyed with Peter’s fingers. “Tell me what you’re thinking.”

“That if you keep this up, I’m going to want to fuck you stupid.”

Neal chuckled. “That’s one way to relax. And a classic, to boot.”

Peter twisted around and pinned Neal beneath him. “And you know I love the classics.”


	23. Don't Make Me

Neal knew that Moz was up to something. For a man who had an advanced degree in squirrelly behavior, his friend was behaving odder than usual.

Neal cornered him in a clean, well-lighted room. “What gives, Moz?”

His friend yelped. “You know better than to sneak up on me. I have a highly developed startle reflex.”

“You have a lot of highly developed skills, Moz. Now – what the hell is going on?”

Moz refused to look at him – a sure sign that he was hiding something.

“If you don’t tell me, I am going to open that bottle of ’94 Screaming Eagle and use it as a mixer.”

This was no idle threat, and Moz knew it. He let out a theatrical sigh.

“I met with the Lady Suit yesterday. We shared some snark, some mutual respect and some information.”

Neal just raised an eyebrow.

“Look, I’m trying to save your life here…I tell you and you’ll go haring off after these guys. The Suit will follow and then you know what? I’m going to have to figure out how to tell your mother that you’re dead.”

“What have you found out?”

Moz pursed his lips.

“Either you tell me, or it’s sangria time. Which is it?”

His friend muttered something about the Hague Convention Against Torture.

“Mozzie?”

“All right. All right.” Moz fidgeted with a piece of tape stuck on the edge of the table. “The C4 I found in the Suits’ cars was made by the same company the manufactured the Semtex that Fowler had bought to blow up the plane.”

“Semtex is a Czech product, Moz.”

“Yes, it is. And you and the Suits are staying put – you’re not getting involved with this.”

“Moz, please.

“No, Neal. That’s final. Don’t make me do something I’ll regret.”


	24. Like Finding Gold in the Garbage

He was caught between a rock and a hard place. He promised Moz that he wouldn’t do anything to put himself or Peter in danger, but Moz had given him the first solid lead they had in all the weeks since Thomas Jansen had been pulled from the East River. This was like finding gold in the garbage.

And if Neal could sense that Moz was holding back, Peter was going to know that Neal had something. They were all too close to each other now. No - Neal was going to bring this to Peter, and they were going to work it from the inside - let Moz and Diana be their feet on the street.

He found Peter in the main room, stripped to the waist and wearing just a pair of well-washed gym shorts. He was doing pull-up and El was counting. Neal entertained a brief, but intense fantasy of the three of them as high school friends. He’d be the bad boy, El was the cheerleader and Peter - the captain of the football team. The three of them would make out under the bleachers during halftime.

Neal shook his head - this wasn’t the time. Tonight, though.

Peter spotted him and stopped, dropping lightly to his feet.

“All recovered from the smoke inhalation?”

“Yeah - just about. Still not up to my regular numbers though.” Peter’s flesh glistened with sweat, the apples of his shoulders bulging. Neal wanted to take a big bite.

“You’ve got something?” Peter’s eyes narrowed. “Other than the wood in your pants.”

Neal smirked. So did El. And then he dropped the bombshell.

“What do you know about the Czech explosives industry?”

“A lot, actually. I busted a money laundering operation that was a front for illegal munitions sales. Why?”

“Mozzie traced the C4."


	25. Not Good Enough

“Neal…” Peter’s voice had a cautionary note to it. He turned to Elizabeth. “Honey, will you excuse us for a few minutes?”

Before El had a chance to respond, Neal interrupted. “Don’t you think it’s time to tell her what’s going on?”

Peter went ballistic and hissed, “Elizabeth’s my wife, and that’s my decision to make…not yours. You have no right to interfere in this, with my marriage.”

Neal blanched. “No? I have no right? Then what am I, Peter? Someone who is good enough to push you out of the path of a sniper’s bullet and drag your ass out of a burning building? Someone who’s good for a convenient fuck when you want a bit of strange? But I’m not good enough to be part of your real life, right?”

“Neal!” Elizabeth tried to mediate. “That’s not what Peter meant … is it?” She turned back to her husband, who had gone silent. “Peter?”

Neal gave a short bark of bitter laughter. “Funny – I was just thinking how wonderful everything was. It’s good to know that I still have an unbroken track record for falling in love, for loving someone who only wants to use me.

Peter pulled his shirt on and simply said, “I have some phone calls to make.” He left the room, his wife standing there with her mouth opened and his erstwhile partner shaking with the force of his anger.

“Neal – he didn’t mean it – he’s on edge. This has been so difficult for him. Please…”

“I’m heading back to the City.” Neal’s voice was flat, emotionless.

“It’s not safe for you.”

“I was never the target, El.”

“Peter – he needs you.”

“No, I don’t think he does. He was just rather obvious about that.”

“You’re wrong, Neal.”

He just shrugged. “Peter’ll be fine.”


	26. Old Business

It’s funny how things can change between one heartbeat and the next.

As soon as Neal asked him what he knew about the Czech munitions industry and then that Moz had traced the C4, Peter knew who was coming after him. It wasn’t anything to do with Mentor, or Adler or even the money laundering case that he mentioned.

This was old business. Older than his time at the Bureau, older than his days as an accounting major at Harvard.

Peter fished out his shoulder rig and opened one of the spare clip cases. No one ever noticed that the second case was just a little thicker – it had a compartment than hid a small silver security token with a liquid crystal display. Every sixty seconds, the 12-digit code refreshed.

Peter used one of the unregistered burner phones that Mozzie had provided, dialed a number and waited for the confirmation tone. He entered the numbers that the token displayed and hung up. A few seconds later, the phone rang.

He answered it. “Peter Burke, serial number 16-345-Tango-901-Alpha-6659, security code …” Peter read the current code off of the token.

“Good evening, Commander Burke. What can we do for you?”

“I need a pick up. You have my location?”

“We do, sir. You and your wife?”

“No, just me. I will need security for her and for one other person, though.”

“That will be arranged. A car will arrive within the hour, unless you need an emergency extraction?”

“No, no need for a helicopter. Thank you.”

Peter hung up the phone, opened the SIM card slot, removed the chip and crushed it.

He tried not to think of the pain he just caused Neal, the pain he was about to cause Elizabeth.

But their living pain was better than their dead bodies.


	27. Shadows and Skylines

Peter stood at the window, the Manhattan skyline barely making an impression.

 _Do what is right, let the chips fall where they may… Do what is right._

Was this really the right thing to do? To so abruptly force this break? To hurt someone you loved, who loved you with his whole heart – just to keep him safe? It had to be.

There was no way he could risk Neal’s involvement in this. If he was right – and everything in his gut screamed that he was, the people involved would make Vincent Adler look like a kindergarten bully. The only way he could keep Neal safe was by driving him away.

The anguish on Neal’s face. Peter would give anything to make it go away, anything never to have caused it at all. But he knew Neal too well – he wouldn’t stop until he discovered the truth, until he put himself so deep into harm’s way that nothing Peter could do would save him.

He dressed quickly; his pickup would be here soon.

Elizabeth stormed in, fury radiating out of every pore of her body. “Neal’s going back to the City tonight.”

“It’s for the best.”

“I don’t understand.”

Peter turned back to the window, and rested his head against the cold pane. “Don’t worry about him. He’ll be fine.”

“You think? You break his heart and he’ll be just fine? When did you become an asshole, Peter Burke?” Elizabeth gathered up a blanket and some pillows. “I can’t stand the thought of sleeping next to you tonight. I’m bedding down with Satchmo.”

Peter didn’t say a word. As he watched the lot in front of the building, a knife-blade of light briefly splitting the darkness. Neal was leaving.

He put his hand up, but he didn’t touch the glass.


	28. Words Are Just the Ashes

Neal walked into the office and straight to Diana’s desk.

“You have something of mine?”

She looked up, startled. “Neal, what the hell are you doing here?”

“As far as I know, my job - as detailed by my contract with the FBI.” He wondered if he was slightly insane. He could have just left and no one would have been the wiser until he was safely away, with a new identity in place. But Neal knew exactly why he didn’t run.

Because even though Peter clearly had little use for him other than a tool, he still loved Peter. Still wanted his approval, his affection, like a damned dog.

Neal turned that off and held out his hand. “My tracker, Diana.”

She shook her head and whispered furiously. “Don’t be stupid, Neal - you could lead the people trying to kill Peter right to him.”

“That won’t be a problem, Diana. I won’t be seeing Peter until he’s back in the office.”

She looked at him, puzzled. “Neal - you’re partners. Of course you’re going to see Peter. If not tonight, then tomorrow or the next day.”

“Diana - Peter’s my handler. I am his criminal informant, not his partner. That’s it. He’s not working any cases right now, so he doesn’t need to see me.”

Diana got up and steered him towards the stairs and into the conference room. “Neal, what happened?” Her voice was gentle, filled with concern.

He closed his eyes and tried not to cry. He was not sixteen, this wasn’t high school and there were a dozen agents staring at him through the glass walls.

“Peter made it clear just what I mean to him.”

“You mean the world to him, Neal.”

“You’re wrong, Diana. I mean nothing to him. Nothing.”


	29. An Unexpected Ally

“Caffrey, what the hell are you doing here?” Hughes inadvertently echoed Diana’s question, and then he stopped and gave Neal a close, hard look. He didn’t like what he saw.

“Berrigan, will you excuse us?” Diana left, clearly reluctant.

Hughes positioned himself so that his body blocked Caffrey from the rest of the office.

“What’s going on, Neal?”

“Nothing, sir.”

His tone was respectful, but Reese couldn’t help but hear the world of hurt in those three syllables. He sighed. This was not a conversation he every really wanted to have with Neal.

“I’ve known about you and Peter and Elizabeth since the beginning.” He kept his voice low - he didn’t want to spook Caffrey.

Neal looked up, a credible version of a deer caught in the headlights. Hughes held up a hand to forestall any questions. “I’m not an idiot, and I’m not blind. What happened? Why did you leave the safehouse?”

He didn’t expect Neal to open up about his personal relationship - not with him, but there was something else at work here. It was amazing to see his thought processes so visibly - Caffrey was usually much more guarded.

“I told Peter about a connection between the Semtex that Garrett Fowler had bought and the C4 that was discovered in his car. The same company made the explosives, about the same time.” Neal paused, “I told this to Peter, he mentioned an old money laudering case, and then …”

Hughes put the pieces together - better than Neal ever could. He had the whole picture. “Neal, there are things I can’t tell you. Peter can’t tell you. You are going to have to trust us, please.”

Reese kicked himself - he should have seen the from the beginning. _Damn...this was going to be a lot of bad business._


	30. Farewell Insight

Neal spent most of his day pretending to analyze cold case files and not staring up at Hughes’ office. What the hell did the old man mean, “There are things I can’t tell you. Peter can’t tell you.”

He closed the folder he was trying to work on, and found himself jotting down dates. The graduation date from Peter’s Harvard diploma, the year he started with the Bureau, his date of birth, the current date. Basic mathematics revealed something he should have realized a long time ago.

There were eleven years of Peter’s life that he knew nothing about. How did he miss this? It was staring at him in the face for nearly four years. Every time he walked into Peter’s office, everytime he saw the date on that damned diploma.

What did Peter do from the time he graduated high school to the time he started college? And more to the point, did he really want to know?

 _Yes._ Most definitely yes, if it meant figuring out and stopping the people trying to kill him.

Neal tried to put away the hurt from last night’s brush off, he tried to concentrate on problem at hand. But he kept seeing Peter’s face, the second-by-second reactions when he told him about the explosives. It went from joy and pleasure to curiosity, concern and worry. And lastly, for the briefest of moments, fear. Then nothing. No anger - not even when Neal tried to tell Elizabeth about the danger they were in.

 _That son of a bitch!_ Neal all but exploded out of his chair. _He played me. He wanted me out of there._

He needed to get back to the safe house, now. He had to see Peter.


	31. Get Back

Neal was slightly shocked that Hughes didn’t want him back on the tracker. Faced with the bizarre circumstance of demanding that the anklet be put on, he kept his peace. Now, he was grateful. He needed to get back to Obscurity without leading Peter’s enemies to him.

Neal still couldn’t believe he fell for Peter’s deception. And so damn quickly – was he that insecure? Apparently. And Peter knew it, too.

He left without saying a word, just a nod to Diana and another one to Hughes. Two footsore hours later, he let himself into the former storage building, but something was wrong. It was way too dark and too quiet.

Or perhaps not quiet enough – the click of a trigger broke the silence.

Neal put up his hands and turned around slowly.

“Elizabeth!”

She was pointing a gun at him, her hands were shaking.

“What are you doing?”

“Peter’s gone.”

Neal carefully took the gun from her. “He was kidnapped?”

“No – he left. Sometime after midnight. I slept in the TV room – I was so angry.” Her voice ended on a sob.

This wasn’t the time to tell her how Peter had played both of them. “You’re sure he left voluntarily?”

El nodded and took him to the laptop that recording from the external security cameras. “I checked this first.” She hit the playback.

The infrared and the standard feeds were playing side-by-side, showing Peter leaving the building and walking towards a black Town Car. A man got out and saluted him. Peter saluted back, got into the car, which left.

Neal looked down at Elizabeth; her face was a stony mask of pain and anger.

“El, what did Peter do before college? Do you know?”

She nodded. “Peter was in Naval Intelligence. I can’t tell you more than that.”


	32. Everything Has Its Price

Peter laid everything out for his old bosses in Naval Intelligence. They were rather surprised he hadn’t come to them sooner.

“Frankly – I didn’t see the connection until a few hours ago.”

The admiral harrumphed, then looked at Peter and gave him a wry grin. “When you got out, you really got out.” They had started in Basic together, almost thirty years ago.

“I never looked back.”

“Tell us about Neal Caffrey.”

Peter froze. He expected this, but not so soon. “Neal’s a former con man and forger. He’s been working off a four-year sentence for a prison escape as an embedded CI in my department.”

There was a collective sigh of exasperation from the brass on the other side of the conference table. The admiral clarified her question. “What is Neal Caffrey to you?”

“If you know enough to ask, then you already know the answer.”

“We want to hear it from your own mouth.”

Peter didn’t hesitate. “Neal Caffrey is the man I love…the man my wife and I love.”

“Not just your boyfriend? Your wife’s bit of extracurricular activity?”

Peter all but snarled. “He is our husband. And frankly, at this point – I don’t give a damn who knows.”

There was some whispering on the other side of the table.

“We want to bring him in.”

“Here? He knows nothing about this.”

“We’re not talking about getting the target off your back. Mr. Caffrey can be a valuable asset. Surely you can see that. He’s going to need a purpose once that tracker comes off. What better way to keep him on the straight and narrow than letting him serve his country?”

A ball of ice formed in his stomach. The thought of Neal, recruited as a covert operative for the U.S. Government filled him with dread.


	33. The Queen Side Knight

Neal had placed a call to Moz when he was en route back to Obscurity, and he arrived shortly after Neal.

“Let me get this straight, the Suit just left you alone here?” Moz looked like he was ready to explode. “He left you unprotected?”

“Moz…this isn’t helping.” Neal tried to stop the tirade.

“And you – you just left? What type of boneheaded move was that?”

“Bad choice – I realize that now.”

“Moz – please. Peter did something very stupid. And he’s not going to get away with it.”

The determined light in El’s eyes frightened Neal. And aroused him rather inappropriately.

“We need your help.”

“You always need my help. Don’t know how you manage to get out of bed without my help.” Moz grumbled, barely placated. Neal understood his friend’s anger – but now wasn’t the time.

“Mozzie…” El put her hand on his arm. “I need to tell you a secret – I need to trust you. This is big and dangerous and it could mean more than Peter’s life.”

Moz looked from Elizabeth to Neal. Neal nodded, eyes grave. “This one isn’t a game, Mozzie. It’s more serious than anything, and could end up destroying us all, if not handled right.”

“Okay – I don’t like blind buying, but for you, anything.” Moz wasn’t looking at Neal when he said that.

They showed him the video of Peter leaving. Moz zoomed in on the salute and shrieked. “What the hell is that.”

El scrubbed at her eyes, weariness and worry driving out most of her anger at her thick-headed, overprotective husband.

“Moz – before Peter joined the Bureau, before he went to Harvard, he was in the Navy.”

Moz didn’t say a word, but his narrowed eyes spoke volumes of disapproval.

“Peter was in Naval Intelligence.”

“He was a spy.”

“Yes.”


	34. Official Sanction

The clock on the wall was the only sound until Peter spoke.

“You can’t have him. Make no mistake about that. I will walk out of here right now.”

“You’ve got a bull’s eye on your back, you need our help. You came to us.”

“The target’s there because someone didn’t do their job. You don’t get to destroy Neal Caffrey as payment for your fuck-up.”

“Destroy? That rather a harsh word, Commander.”

“It’s not ‘Commander’ – it’s ‘Agent’ – you kicked me out, remember? And yes, what you’re proposing will absolutely destroy Neal.”

“You mean, destroy your cozy little ménage a trois.”

“I meant exactly what I said. Neal will jump at your offer – because it’s exciting, it will feed into his love of adventure – to run a long con with official sanction, until he realizes just what it means. That he'll have to kill. Then he’ll freak, he’ll run and you won’t even bother to bring him in.”

“I think we’ll let Mr. Caffrey make his own choice in this matter, it isn’t yours to make for him.”

“Let me ask you this – sixteen years ago, you ‘requested’ that I stand down from active duty because top brass suddenly didn’t like that I was bisexual. Now you want to recruit my lover, my partner. My husband?”

“Times change, Commander. Mistakes were made. You got a scholarship to Harvard out of us. You could have spent ten years in a military prison, instead.”

“I doubt that – I fucked Pavel Czerny at Command’s direct orders – I had a sexual affair with a man for the good of my country. That would have made for a very interesting court martial. Now, get Czerny off my back – whatever you have to do. And stay away from Neal Caffrey.”

“You’re in no position to make threats, Commander.”

“I wouldn’t be too sure of that.”


	35. No Other Way

“Why wasn’t I notified that Czerny was released from prison? You are on good relations with the Czechs, aren’t you?”

“I know it’s no excuse, but he was in jail so long, no one was left in the service who realized what his release would mean.”

“How long has he been out?”

A few keyboard taps and the data came up on the video display.

“Released a year ago? My family’s been at risk for a year?”

“Commander, please.”

Peter took a deeper look, and correlated the information with the data he had on McGuinness-Humbolt. “He’s been running a small arms empire from prison since he’s been there. He’s been working through strawmen. And no one caught this?”

“The more important question is why now? Why wait so long?”

“Wait? For what?”

“Revenge – you used him, you retrieved information that was vital to Western interests, exposed his organization and got him a fifteen year prison sentence.”

Peter considered that angle. “No, that’s not Pavel Czerny. He’s too cold blooded. This isn’t about revenge. There’s something he wants.”

“He wants you dead.”

“Maybe. But Czerny’s a reptile. This doesn’t feel right.”

“Maybe it’s not Czerny?”

Peter shrugged, playing it cool, but the thought of going back to square one infuriated him. “Take care of Pavel Czerny. I need my life back.”

“We will, if he’s the one responsible for the attempts on your life, your family’s life.”

Peter nodded, this was the best he could expect. Now to go back to Obscurity and make things right with El. Then to find Neal, who had a twenty hour head start. And no tracker.

Neal could be anywhere by now. Maybe he should just let him go. If he were Neal, he’d be in the wind.

 _There should have been another way._


	36. Maybe They Are Not Forever, After All

Before he had fled into the night, Neal took off the diamond ring Peter and Elizabeth had given him when they exchanged vows. He didn’t leave it behind; he wasn’t the one who repudiated their relationship. But he pocketed it, and for the night and the day that he had left Obscurity, it weighed him down.

Sitting in the TV room, listening to Elizabeth and Moz talk about Peter, he had to smile, Moz was suggesting dismemberment, and that he knew a few places where body parts wouldn’t be found. El gave a watery chuckle, and suggested that he let her wage her own battles.

A rising tide of shame overtook Neal. “Moz, can I talk to Elizabeth, please.”

His friend looked up, blinking owlishly at him.

“In private.”

“Oh…OH.” Moz nodded at him, gave El a kiss on the forehead and left the room.

He sat down next to her and took her hand, pressing a kiss to her fingers. “I’m so sorry, Elizabeth.”

She looked at him, startled, “What for?”

“For running out on you – whatever problems are between me and Peter, they don’t pass through to you. You are as much my spouse as Peter is - was.” Neal grimaced at the last.

“Neal…” Her voice held a wealth of sadness, and understanding. “If Peter had done to me what he did to you, I would have left, too.” She brushed a finger over the pale band of skin on his ring finger. “Can you forgive him?”

“I don’t know, El. He knew exactly how to hurt me. What would devastate me the most, and even though I’m pretty certain he did it so I’d leave and get out of the line of fire, I can’t excuse what he did. How can I ever trust him again?”


	37. Night Falls

Peter didn’t accept the offer of a ride back to Brooklyn, he had the driver drop him off at a Metro stop. He got on and off the train four times, making certain he wasn’t followed before catching a high-speed train back to New York. He did the same thing before he allowed himself to even come close to Obscurity. The burning edge of the sun against the western horizon told him just how late he was.

Security was still in place, and he looked up the cameras that covered the single point of entry. No matter how angry El was at him, she was too smart to leave, too smart to expose herself. He didn’t let himself think about Neal, about how far away he was by now. Twenty hours was long enough to go to ground almost anywhere when no one knew you were missing.

Peter stood at the door, hand hovering over the keypad. No, don’t think about Neal. Don’t think about how easily you destroyed him. Don’t think about the pain. No, just don’t think.

He forced himself to punch in the code that unlocked the door.

Hon hovered on his lips, I love you - but he didn’t have the right to say that word. Not yet, maybe not for a long while.

“Elizabeth?”

“Suit – I gave you credit for being a better man than you actually are.” Mozzie walked out from the shadows. “Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t take you down right now for what you did to Neal, to Elizabeth.”

There was a gun in Moz’s right hand and the safety was off.

“I did what I thought was right. But it wasn’t. In fact, it was probably the very worst thing I have ever done in my entire life.”


	38. Drowing In Regrets

“And you’ve done some pretty terrible things in your life, haven’t you Suit.” All trace of the paranoid eccentric was gone. Peter was faced with an angry, disappointed man.

“Yes, I have – I most certainly have.”

“I keep thinking how much I’d prefer to empty this into you, but your wife wouldn’t be too happy about that.” Moz flicked the safety back on the Glock and handed it to him. “And unlike some, I care about her.”

“Moz, enough.” Peter was beginning to lose his patience.

“Welcome home.” El stepped into the front room. Her eyes were red-rimmed, and he wondered, was possible to hate himself even more?

They both looked at Mozzie, who smiled at El and glared at Peter before leaving.

Peter tried to smile. “Hi, hon.”

Elizabeth shook her head. “No, Peter. Don’t – not now.”

He was drowning in the wreck of his life, but she threw him a lifeline. “I can’t understand why you did what you did. Tell me, please.”

“I panicked, El. I needed to get Neal as far away from me as I could, as fast as I possibly could. I needed to keep him safe. And I succeeded gloriously.” The self-loathing in his voice was corrosive.

“Did you forget that I love him too, and how badly his absence would hurt me? Did you consider that in your all mighty rush to rearrange the world to suit your convenience?”

Shame warred with the self-loathing.

“We can’t go back, Peter.”

“I know. I’m so very sorry.”

She brushed her fingers against his icy cheek and the heat from her small hand burned him. “But we can go forward.”

“El, when this is done – I promise you, I’ll do what ever it takes to find Neal and bring him back. Nothing will stop me.”


	39. Reservations

Neal listened to Peter’s impassioned vow, and was unsurprisingly torn at his own reaction.

A part of him wanted to rush in, have a knock down – drag out fight, and then forgive him. Another, cooler, angrier, smarter part of him wanted to stay away, let Peter stew a while – a long while, let him linger until the pain became as much a part of him as the color of his eyes or the lines on his palms.

It galled him how at how easily Peter was able to do this to him, how he knew just how deep to stick the knife, just how much to twist it to make him bleed. And as bad as that pain was, the fact that he didn’t run – he didn’t even think of running, was worse.

Neal knew that the first words out of Peter’s mouth, once he picked his jaw up off the floor, were going to be “I’m sorry.” And then he’d try to explain everything.

Neal was certain that he’d forgive Peter, and they’d even be happy again – all three of them. But Neal wasn’t sure if he could ever trust Peter the way he had – wholly and without reservation.

Between the three of them, there had never been any calculation on the price of love – they all gave in equal portions of risk and joy. But now, Neal wondered how often he was going to have to measure out his commitment, if he would be better off holding back just enough to keep himself whole and sane when this happened again.

It was quiet in the main room.

Moz was leaning against the doorframe, watching him. As Neal walked by – to start something, or to finish it, he stopped, brushed a kiss against his friend’s cheek and whispered, “Thank you.”


	40. Deface

Peter looked at the half-finished mural that Neal had been working on – it was a window to another world, one filled with sunlight and promise. He saw where Neal had sketched the outlines of three people – a woman and two men, and he was once again sucked into the bitterness of regret.

The sound of footsteps distracted him and he turned around.

It was Neal – and every emotion he had suffered through the past two days was wiped out in a tide of pure joy. He had left, but he hadn’t run.

He opened his mouth to apologize _I’m sorry. Forgive me, please._ But the look of grim desolation in Neal’s eyes dried up all his words.

They stared at each other from across the room. He watched, dry-mouthed as Neal approached and he steeled himself – for what? Physical violence was not in Neal’s makeup – but he’d seen the consequences of Neal pushed to the limits.

Neal said nothing. There was a canvas on an easel, covered – another project he’s been working on, one he hadn’t allowed Peter to see. Neal flipped the drop cloth off the painting. It was a portrait of him, a captured moment in time.

He squeezed out a dollop of glossy black paint onto a palette and picked up a brush. The only sound in the room, other than the pounding of Peter’s heart was the squish and scrap of the brush as it was loaded with paint.

Peter watched, frozen in horror, as Neal smeared thick black streaks across the canvas, deliberately defacing his own artwork. When he was done, he cleaned his brush and tossed it back into the tray.

Peter finally realized, to the fullest extent, the damage he had done. Not only to their relationship – but to Neal himself.


	41. Restoration

The painting stayed covered on the easel for two days, and Peter took to working with his back facing it, but the unfinished mural on the wall in front of him was a potent, if less visceral reminder of what he had broken in a moment of thoughtless panic. The canvas was gone on the third day.

On the fourth day, after a sleepless night in a bed that was far too empty, Peter went into Obscurity’s main room to find that there was a canvas under the dropcloth. He didn’t quite know what to do. So he made the daily phone call to the NIS in Suitland, got the run-around about Pavel Czerny, busted some functionary’s chops, tried to call in favors and stared at the grey, paint splattered muslin.

Late that afternoon, after hanging up from another pointless conversation, Peter was shocked to find Neal in the room, standing next to the easel. He didn’t say anything as he flipped the dropcloth over. The portrait, the one he had so brutally defaced, was completely restored. No trace of black remained.

Peter didn’t say anything, he was almost afraid that he’d spook Neal, who looked like he hadn’t slept in days. His hair was shaggy and unkempt and there were huge dark circles under his eyes. Neal looked worse than he did after Kate was killed. For the first time since he came back to the safe house, Neal spoke to him directly.

“Tell me why, Peter? Why did you do that to me? Why couldn’t you trust me?”

Peter opened his mouth, but was at a loss for words. He had practiced this speech in his head so many times. He finally found his voice.

“Let me tell you about a man called Pavel Czerny.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A technical note - Neal had painted Peter’s portrait in oils, but he defaced it using acrylic paint, which is very easily removed with denatured alcohol. It is a solvent does not affect oil paint.


	42. A Story Written Long Ago

Neal listened to the tale of a young seaman eager to serve his country, a group of Intelligence Officers who found a way to exploit his facility with both math and Slavic languages, and a sexually sadistic young arms dealer ready to buy and sell vast quantities of military grade explosives to extremist groups emerging in the former Soviet client states.

“I panicked, Neal. I put the clues together and I panicked. The thought of Czerny getting anywhere near you. I just…panicked.” Peter scrubbed at his eyes and buried his face in his hands. His posture radiated grief and defeat, a Roman general who had lost an Eagle.

Neal didn’t want to give in to the rising tide of compassion, he wanted to hold fast to his anger, to the righteous pain, but he couldn’t. He touched Peter, tracing the fingers that covered his face, feeling the unaccustomed moisture of his lover’s tears.

“I told you – I was done with running.”

Peter looked up, pitiable hope in his eyes. Neal sat across from Peter – as if they were at work. “But you left…I watched you leave. Why did you change your mind?”

“I didn’t. I’m an idiot – a fool for love. I holed up with Moz and went to the office the next day – I didn’t even think about doing anything else. Almost got into a fight with Diana when she refused to give me the tracker back.”

Peter started to smile, but stopped at Neal’s next words.

“I don’t know when I hated you more – when you made me feel that I was worthless, or when I realized that you knew that making me feel like that would drive me away. To be able to strike at my deepest fears with laser guided accuracy without a second thought.”


	43. The Ties That Bind

Neal finally allowed himself to look at Peter, to look closely. The past few days had taken their toll on him, Peter looked worn out, used up, old. Neal didn’t want to care, but he couldn’t stop caring. They were tied together and it would break his soul to be sundered from this man.

And yet, he let his words be an indictment, a trial and a judgment. They’d been through too much, and too many times Peter had stood judgment over him. He didn’t want to carve out his pound of flesh, but he was still Neal Caffrey – and a man who did not, could not just let things go.

“Where do we go from here?” Peter reached out. Neal didn’t recoil, but he didn’t welcome his lover’s touch.

“I don’t know. I don’t like the idea of being so damn vulnerable. We’ve been through this before.”

“Yeah – and I wasn’t wrong.” There was a thread of iron – and irony – in Peter’s reply.

“But you weren’t right either.” Neal kept his eyes on Peter’s face. “I still love you …” Neal ignored Peter’s hiss of indrawn breath. “But I don’t like you very much.”

“I deserve that, I know.” This time, Peter took hold of Neal’s hand, rubbing his thumb across the pale space where his wedding band used to be. “But my motivation…”

“You’ve often accused me of doing the wrong thing for the right reason.” Neal turned his hand and grasped Peter’s fingers. “Your motivation may have been the purest, but you don’t get to make those decisions for me, for us.”

“Can you forgive me? Can we get back what we had? What I destroyed? Please?”

“I don’t know …” Neal paused, he tried to find the words, but the despair in Peter’s eyes was terrible.


	44. Agent of Grace

“How badly did he hurt you?”

Peter was startled by Neal’s non sequitur.

“Czerny – how badly?”

He pulled back – not wanting to dredge up the details. “I handled the situation.” He started to get up, to get away.

Neal gave a small snort of laughter. It wasn’t pleasant. “I’m supposed to be the master of deflection.” He pulled Peter back down. “Was it worse than what happened to me?”

Peter looked at Neal’s grave, beautiful face and remembered the photos in that prison medical file. The bruises, the wounds. And he remembered his sympathetic understanding. “Not worse, but bad. In a different way. I knew what Czerny was. I wasn’t an innocent.”

“Such a fucking patriot.”

“Neal – I did what I had to do. I survived. No regrets.” That wasn’t true – but his regrets weren’t relevant to the damage he inflicted on Neal.

“You asked me a question – I haven’t answered it.” Peter wasn’t sure how to interpret the pensive note in Neal’s voice.

“Can you?” Elizabeth came into the room. She sat down next to Peter, resting her head against his shoulder. “Neal – can you forgive him?”

Peter twisted around - this was the first time El really touched him since he came back from Suitland. She tucked herself under his arm.

“Can you, Elizabeth?” Neal asked and Peter tried to watch both their faces. He settled for watching Neal’s. He could feel El’s tension radiate through his body.

She was careful in her reply. “I love Peter, and if I don’t forgive him, that love is futile.” She reached put and brushed Neal’s cheek. “How many times have we forgiven you for your mistakes, Neal? For all the time you’ve hurt Peter, hurt us. When your intentions were far from good. Don’t you think Peter deserves the same grace?


	45. At the Foot of Thee

Neal was still heartsore, but Elizabeth was right - how many times had he wounded their relationship, their bond of trust? From good intentions, and the basest of greed. What Peter did to him, to them, still hurt - but the distance between them hurt even more.

Moz would think him a fool for love - but then, he always did.

The angel of grace, the one that kept him from running so many times, the one that made him turn back, was whispering in his ear to forgive Peter. To lay aside the hurt and the disappointment - Peter’s done it often enough for him.

He moved closer and cupped the back of Peter’s head. He felt him trembling, and Neal pulled him close, careful not to dislodge Elizabeth, and rested his forehead against Peter’s.

“We can’t undo what has happened - but can we make sure it doesn’t happen again?” He pressed a kiss against Peter’s cheek, tasting the wetness of tears.

Peter nodded. “I love you - I wouldn’t have done it if I didn’t. That’s no excuse - but I won’t abuse your trust again.”

Those words were an oath, and Neal knew he could carry them in his heart, believe in them until he was nothing more than dust in the ground.

“I love you too, Peter. I forgive you.” Saying those words was monumental.

Neal pulled back, smearing the wetness from his own tears against Peter’s damp cheeks. He reached into his pocket and handed Peter his ring.

“Will you put this back on me?”

Peter took it, and took Neal’s left hand. Elizabeth rested hers on top of Peter’s. He whispered to him, “Neal Caffrey, husband, lover, and friend. We go forward from this moment now.”

The cool band slipped onto his finger and the icy places in his heart warmed.


	46. The Flesh and The Word

Peter ran his hand over Neal’s sleep-warmed skin. They’d only been parted for five days, but it felt like a lifetime. He was surprised that Neal’s flesh didn’t feel different – it should have, after everything. He stroked his shoulder, cupping it, feeling the shift of muscle and bone.

The caress disturbed Neal, who rolled over and opened his eyes. This was often the sweetest time with him – when he was unguarded, opened and vulnerable. The love there stole his breath and Peter’s heart skipped a beat in happiness.

“Hey.” Neal smiled. “Welcome home.”

Peter kissed him and pulled back, trying not to make a face. Neal always had the worst morning breath. “You okay?”

Neal nodded. “You?”

“Yeah.”

Elizabeth grumbled from Peter’s other side. There were few inviolable rules in the Burke-Caffrey-Burke ménage, but one was no talking in bed when El was sleeping. No matter how important the conversation was.

Neal got up and Peter followed him into the bathroom. They washed up and went to the great room, the scene of yesterday’s high drama.

Peter sat on the couch and pulled Neal down. He held him close and kept whispering, “I am so sorry.”

Neal kissed Peter’s jaw. “Stop it – it’ll be all right.”

Peter slid his hands under Neal’s robe, loving the velvet texture of his skin as it warmed his palms. “I need you.” Peter swallowed against the welter of emotions. “Please, Neal, I need you.”

When they had fallen into bed last night, sex didn’t seem right. They were more starved for touch and comfort. But now, Peter needed Neal more than air – he needed the gift of Neal’s submission, his flesh and body taking what Peter needed to give.

But Neal wasn’t interested in eager submission this time, pulling Peter down into his arms.


	47. Conspiracy of Solace

Peter didn’t resist Neal’s tug, relaxing into his arms. He didn’t resist when Neal flipped him over and pressed him down into the couch, their cocks meeting and thrusting between their parted robes. Peter wanted Neal in all the usual ways, beneath him, accepting, a willing partner, but letting his own desires subordinate to Peter’s. And yet, at this moment, he could accept Neal’s need to assert himself, to take control. They rarely came together like this – a very few memorable occasions, but Peter understood the need right now.

Intellectually, that was.

Neal did something with his robe, using the sash to bind his hands against his belly. Peter was all right with that, too. But when he flipped Peter over and started toying with his body, touching his anus, lightly scratching the delicate skin, something went terribly wrong.

Memories – bad ones –crowded out the desire and Peter panicked. Between the hyperventilating gasps, he said, “Red – red – _RED_.”

Neal stopped instantly and turned him over, freeing his hands. Peter kept his eyes tightly shut, like a child waking from a nightmare.

Peter felt Neal rubbing his hands, stroking his cheeks, running his fingers through his hair, whispering, “It’s just me, just Neal. You’re safe.”

He opened his eyes, it was just Neal. “I’m sorry – I don’t know what happened to me.”

The expression on Neal’s face was terrifying. “I’ll kill him. For what he did to you – I’ll kill him.”

“Neal – don’t go there.”

“Peter – “ Neal knew all too well the demons Peter was fighting.

“No – not now.” They held each other, taking comfort in simply proximity. Finally, Peter said “Don’t say anything to El – she doesn’t need to know about this.”

Neal nodded. He’d asked the same thing of Peter once, and it was a promise he kept.


	48. Concealed in Plain Sight

Elizabeth woke up to an empty bed, but it still retained the warmth of its recent occupants. She had a vague recollection of shushing Peter and Neal and was sorry for that, because it drove her husbands away, out of this sanctuary.

She got up, washed up and went to look for her men.

El found them, curled up on the couch in the great room, whispering to each other. Neal was stroking Peter’s cheek and Peter had his face tucked into Neal’s shoulder. They didn’t see her standing there, and she watched, wishing she could hear what they were saying.

Neal wrapped his arms around Peter, a gesture of comfort, forgiveness, and her heart sang. It was going to be all right. She had worried - even though Neal had told Peter he’d forgiven him, she didn’t know if they’d ever recover the intimacy, Peter’s need for touch, Neal’s own craving for the simple contact that proximity brings.

It seemed that they had.

Satchmo busted her, trotting in, looking for breakfast and a morning walk. Her husbands looked up and she couldn’t quite decipher their expressions.

She kept her tone casual. “Everything okay?”

Neal smiled, but it was one of his con man grins, the ones she never trusted. “We’re good.” He looked at Peter for confirmation. Her husband nodded. “We’re very good.” Despite the false smile, El could see no discord or deception between Peter and Neal, and she supposed that’s what was important.

“What happens now?” She hoped against hope that this interlude in lotus-eater land would be coming to an end.

Peter didn’t say anything - he looked from her to Neal. Neal stared back.

“We’re still not safe. If anything, the danger’s greater - for all of us.”

“So, we can’t leave here?”

“Not yet, but soon.”


	49. Closer Than Blood

Neal needed to talk with Peter. Not just about what happened this morning and what happened to him all those years ago - but about what happens next. While they’d been chasing McGuinness-Humbolt ghosts, Pavel Czerny had been playing them all for fools. But it was impossible to talk with him without Elizabeth in earshot - she wasn’t leaving them alone.

Not that he minded - but it was hard to keep secrets when your wife, the person you were trying to protect, was determined not to let you out of her sight. Neal actually wondered if Elizabeth knew there was something going on, and was intent on figuring it out.

Neal shook his head - no, that wasn’t possible. But this stasis was killing him. So he went to Mozzie.

“So, you’ve forgiven the Suit?” There was more than a touch of bitterness in the question.

Neal didn’t say anything. Mozzie’s disapproval about his relationship with Peter and Elizabeth was something he’s lived with for a while.

“I need information.”

“You’re just going to let him ride roughshod over you? You have a spine of Jello and I’m disgusted.” Mozzie had a few more choice words about the situation.

“He’s forgiven me for much worse, Moz.”

“Don’t be such a moral relativist.”

Neal lost his patience. “He was trying to protect me - not steal a billion dollars in art that belonged to the Russian government.”

Moz turned white. “That was uncalled for, Neal.”

He didn’t care if he crossed an uncrossable line. “I’ve forgiven Peter. Elizabeth’s forgiven him. He needs our help.”

“I’m not part of your happy family, Neal. I never will be.”

“Damn it Moz, that’s not true. You’re my …”

“Your what? Your patsy? Your two-legged search engine?” He flung those words like acid.

“No, Moz. You’re my brother.


	50. I Believe in What You Do

Mozzie was completely disarmed. “Really?”

Neal put a hand on his shoulder. “Really, _mon frère_.” That was his expression for Neal. Neal had never used it for him. Ever.

He searched Neal’s face. There was no mockery there, but he knew Neal almost better than the back of his own hand, and he wasn’t above using emotion to get what he wanted. “But you trust Peter more than me.”

Neal smiled. “Of course I do - Peter’s inherently trustworthy. You’ve run with the Detroit mob. You’ve robbed banks. You're a criminal of the highest order. You’re also a professional paranoid and an avid conspiracy theorist. You trust no one, not even me.” Neal’s smile became a full-fledged grin - and not the con man’s fake one. “My lack of trust has nothing to do with my respect, my love and our kinship.”

The cold knot of anger that was lodged somewhere under his breastbone migrated upwards, becoming a lump in his throat. He was a little annoyed at himself for being a sentimental fool, but for a man who grew up without a family, being called brother was not something he could take lightly.

Almost against his will and his sense of self-preservation, Moz wrapped his arms around Neal and gave him a tight hug. Neal squeezed back, just once and very briefly. Which was perfect, and just about all he could take.

They stepped apart and Moz took off his glasses. They were unaccountably steamed up.

“What do you need?”

Neal cocked his head, and Moz was reminded of a blue-eyed wolf-dog he once saw roaming the streets of Detroit. A dangerous stray filled with both cunning and intelligence. No, just as Neal didn’t trust him, he didn’t trust Neal.

And that was just fine.


	51. Hang On To Me and I'll Hang On To You

Three days later, Mozzie put a bottle of wine - what looked like Neal’s best Barolo – and two glasses in the middle of the work table. “You’ll need this.” He then handed Neal a two-inch thick folder.

“I’ll go join Mrs. Suit in the kitchen, see if she needs help with braising the veal.” Mozzie didn’t have to be told that Elizabeth was to be kept out of any discussions concerning Pavel Czerny. He’d keep her distracted with his own interpretations of a classic osso bucco recipe.

Peter held out his hand for the folder, but Neal didn’t give it to him. “I want to see what we’re up against.” There was no point in fighting Neal for it, so he slid his chair around, and sat next to him.

There were two photos clipped to the file jacket, one from the mid-1980’s, when Peter had first met him, and one that was far more recent. Seeing Czerny’s face, after so many years, was a shock. Peter took a deep breath and mostly succeeded in quelling his panic.

Neal just said. “He reminds me of Vincent Adler.”

Peter could see a certain resemblance. Not in the bone structure, but in the eyes. Thinking back, Adler’s eyes had the same deadness about them. He wondered at Neal’s flat, almost affectless tone. He had to ask. “Did you and Adler ever … ?” He left the question hanging, afraid of the answer.

Neal looked up sharply, but didn’t say anything. Peter never saw such a haunted expression on his lover’s face.

“Neal?”

“Let’s just say it was consensual and leave it at that.”

Peter couldn’t stop the words. “Despite everything, I’m glad I killed him. I’m glad he’s dead.”

“So am I.” Neal laid a hand over his. “Thank you.”


	52. The Knotted Cord's Untying

Peter dropped the file onto the table and took a sip of wine. The complexity of the vintage did nothing to alleviate his nausea.

Neal walked around and stood in front of him, cupping his cheek and tilting his face up. “This is wrong - why isn’t this a national security issue? Shouldn’t your … connections be dealing with this?”

Peter tried to pull away, but Neal held on.

“Peter? What’s the matter? What’s wrong?”

He licked his lips. “There’s something else I need to tell you. It’s about where I went last week.”

Neal didn’t say anything, his eyes held his, no doubt there, no fear. The knot of guilt in Peter’s stomach pulled tighter.

“Someday soon, you’re going to walking alone and a black sedan will pull up next to you. A woman in civilian clothes will get out of the back and introduce herself as Commander White or Captain Green or maybe even Admiral Gold. She’ll flash an ID at you - which is about as real as her rank - which means it’s very real. She’s going to ask if you’d be interested in doing your country a favor, and maybe you’d like a lift home.”

Neal kept quiet, but Peter couldn’t help but notice the spark of something on his face.

“Even if you turn her down, she’ll be back. A phone call or two, maybe even a visit to your apartment - this time in full dress uniform. She’ll be very persuasive - she’ll play upon your love of adventure - to be able to run cons on the rich and powerful with the full backing of the government. She’ll make her offer irresistible.”

Peter took a deep breath. “They've offered to help me - but for a price.”

The anger in Neal’s eyes was gratifying. “And I’m their price, right?”


	53. Forever By Your Side

Elizabeth set the kettle on the stove for tea. Neal and Peter were in the main room of Obscurity looking at a file and talking in hushed tones. The past week had been a terrible nightmare of bad choices. It was ironic, this time it was Peter who had done the wrong thing for the right reason. And as always, they came back together.

The water boiled and she poured it into a mug.

Despite the reconciliation, Elizabeth was worried more than she’d let on. Peter had secrets, she always knew that. She knew not to pry into the very dark corners of her husband’s psyche. Not for the first time did she think that his attraction to Neal was grounded in something in his past, something that gave him insight into the other man’s complexities.

Elizabeth was nothing but pragmatic. She had married Peter with her eyes opened. If there were things he couldn’t tell her, she wasn’t going to try to dig them out. But now, she wondered if he was sharing his secrets with Neal and she couldn’t suppress a tiny pang of jealousy.

She took her tea and went to join them. They’d probably stop whatever they were doing and make painfully banal conversation.

A quiet voice said, “They’re not going to tell you, you know.” Elizabeth stifled a shriek.

Moz was standing there in the dark hallway, a bespectacled sentinel.

“Do you know what’s going on?”

“I have an idea or two.”

“Can you tell me?”

Moz looked at her and she was reminded of an old stray cat she once fed, with eyes both wary and infinitely wise.

“The question is not if I can, but if I should.”

“Moz…”

“Elizabeth, I’m not going to interfere. You want to know, you need to ask.”


	54. So Much Space In Between

Moz left her standing there, disappearing into the recesses of the vast building.

She knew that the secrets Peter and Neal were keeping were for her protection. But the time for secrets was over. She was Peter’s wife – and yes – Neal’s wife too, not some casual girlfriend that got caught up in some mess. They were all partners here, and shielding her was only going to make things worse in the long term.

She opened the door to the main room, Peter and Neal immediately stopped talking. Neal gave her the full Caffrey – a smile as fake as a three-dollar bill. Peter’s smile was slightly more genuine.

“What going on?” She kept her tone light, as if she didn’t want to spook them.

“Just trying to figure out what we can do to get out of here. The same thing we’ve been doing for the last two months.” Neal casually flipped the file closed and handed it to Peter.

“Peter?” She gave him the Look, the one that she’d perfected in over a decade of marriage.

He shrugged and averted his eyes.

Elizabeth was done with this. “The time for secrets is over. I’ve been patient long enough. I know that there’s something going on and you can’t keep me in the dark any more.”

Neal looked to Peter, who shook his head, no. Neal looked at him again, and Peter nodded. Neal held out his hand for Elizabeth to join them.

“We can’t tell you everything.”

Elizabeth wondered why Neal was taking the lead, why Peter looked so devastated. “But you can tell me something?”

“Only very little.” Neal looked back at Peter for confirmation.

Peter just scrubbed at his face and said, “An old ghost from my past as resurfaced. Until he’s dead, we’ll never be safe.”


	55. Healing From All The Scars

Every instinct in him screamed not to tell Elizabeth, to keep her protected. But he knew, with a bone-deep certainty that his instincts were wrong. Just as they were wrong about driving Neal away.

“We’re never going to be able to leave here, are we?”

Peter shook his head. “Part of me wants to keep you here.” He looked from Elizabeth to Neal. “Both of you - keep you safe and out of harm’s way.”

“But you won’t.” Neal’s face was set. “I am not letting you make yourself a target.”

He got up and paced the length of the room. Satchmo got up and trailed him. “And if you leave here? I can’t guarantee your safety. You know that.”

“So we stay forever? We just let our lives go and live in isolation because some old enemy wants to kill you?” Peter hated the grief in Elizabeth’s voice.

“It’s more than that - it’s complicated.”

“No it’s not.” The quiet determination in Neal’s voice frightened Peter.

“Neal - no. That’s not an option.” He knew what Neal was doing by bringing this up in front of Elizabeth.

“Peter - it’s not your choice to make.”

“What - what are you talking about?” Just as the moon follows the sun, Elizabeth had to ask the question Peter didn’t want to answer.

“Neal - we’ve been over this.”

“And you’re not going to trick me into leaving or getting angry or doing anything as stupid as that again.”

Neal turned to Elizabeth. “Peter’s old employers - the ones who should be tracking this bastard are refusing to help…”

“They aren’t refusing … not quite.”

“Apparently, they want to recruit me. That’s the price they are asking to clean up the mess they made in the first place.”

El looked at both her men. “Then we stay here.”


	56. Do Not Bring This Peril Upon Yourself

“El – don’t say that.” Neal had to make her, make Peter see that this was a small price to pay for getting their lives back.

“Neal, I will not allow you to put yourself in danger like that.” There were threads of pure iron in her voice. “Didn’t we just establish that no one gets to make unilateral decisions about our lives? Didn’t we just have a week of heartache and loneliness because Peter thought it best to get you out of harm’s way.”

“No one is sacrificing themselves for anything.” Peter commanded quietly. “We are in this together, we are a family. You don’t get to remake my mistakes, Neal.”

Agitated, he got to his feet. In the weeks that they’d been living in Obscurity, he never felt the slightest bit of anxiety – but now he needed to get up, get out. Just do something. “Peter – please. Please. Let’s think about this – don’t dismiss it out of hand.”

“Neal--”

“No, Peter. We can use this. We offer to talk, and my cooperation is condition on their rendition of Czerny, shutting down his operation. Once that’s done – I don’t have to do a damn thing. They can push all they want, but I am still a civilian, and I have no obligation to do their dirty work.”

To Neal’s dismay, Peter shook his head. “That won’t work. They’ll have anticipated this. Either they’ll sit on their hands until Czerny becomes unmanageable, or you’ll find yourself someplace you never wanted to be. More likely the latter.”

“This is the U.S. Military – they don’t just grab civilians off the street and force them to work for them, do they?” El’s voice was a horrified whisper.

“Call it a modern version of the press gang.” Peter turned back to Neal. “They want you for something. Something very specific.”


	57. Let The Wind Blow Through Me

“Make the call, Peter.”

“Neal – no.” Both Peter and El were in agreement.

“We can’t continue to live like this. You know that.”

“There’s no guarantee that if you agree to their terms, they’ll even take Czerny out of play. You have no leverage.”

“No – I do. They want my cooperation, they have to deliver first. Make the call.” Neal was adamant, his will as hard as diamonds.

Peter felt like he was betraying everything he stood for. Neal watched him like prey as he retrieved the code device and made the call. He finished giving his clearance codes and asked to speak with Admiral White.

Neal plucked the phone out of his hand and held him off.

The voice on the other end could have belonged to anyone “Hello?”

“This is Neal Caffrey, am I speaking with Admiral White?”

“How did you get this number, Mr. Caffrey?” There was only mild curiosity in the woman’s tone.

“How do you think? I held a gun to Elizabeth Burke’s head and told her husband unless he called you I was going to kill her.”

“Very funny, Mr. Caffrey. I presume that Commander Burke told you we were interested in your talents.”

“Your interest isn’t all that interesting. What I find fascinating however, is that you’re willing to let a madman run loose in order to get access to my so-called talents. You’re willing to let him commit murder.”

“Well, that may be going a bit far.”

Neal didn’t like the woman’s tone. She was smug. He hated smug. “No, Admiral, I think that’s a very accurate assessment. You seem to like to play with fire.”

“Oh, Mr. Caffrey, I’m not the only one. Your good friend, Peter, was once a regular pyromaniac.”

“That’s ancient history. What do you want from me?”


End file.
